Making the garage a shop

What a longish/shortish strange journey it’s been. And that’s just the bits to get to the beginning of the journey to make my garage into a workshop. I’ll start with a little background, and then get to the point, the introduction to this series.
I’ve been woodworking off and on for most of my life. My father and I would while away the weekend and evening hours in his garage in the Colorado mountains, building whatever was needed, restoring furniture, and making ...

So I have a two car, attached garage. The measurements are roughly 17’ wide by 19’ deep. The wall shared with the living space has the breaker panel, a refrigerator and a plastic storage cabinet. The opposite wall has a mechanic’s bench, mechanic’s toolbox, and a big honking 5 shelf unit that is slated to get donated, once the stuff is removed from it. That leaves the back wall, which has a door to the back yard in the south-east corner.
This garage has served ...

Not much was accomplished this weekend so far, though it is a three day weekend for me, thanks to dead presidents having birthdays close to each other.
I spent a bit of time brainstorming what was going to be needed to make the garage a shop. I opened up Google docs, and listed what I would need to do to get to the finished result. Now that the list is in order, I finally know where to start, and it doesn’t seem too horrible. Here is the outline of the transformation.
1. Clean cl...

The last few days have been exceptional as far as moving forward on the shop.
Monday saw more cleaning, and organization, getting the last bit of organization to be done to the lathe bench. I have a concrete floor in the garage apparently.
The Orange BORG yielded storage bins, electric supplies for two 20 amp circuits, and the expansion of my 15 amp legs for lights, etc. Apparently my new table saw will work on 15amps, so I’m not too hurried to get that taken care of.
Tuesday...

I wrote about a few of the things I’d picked up last week, the largest being a utility trailer to help haul things as the process of turning the garage into a shop gets underway. I plan on hauling drywall, plywood, lumber, insulation, all that good stuff.
After rewiring the trailer, getting it plated, and stripping of the useless sidewall I was able to mount some d-rings and use the trailer for the first of many hauling jobs. My new table saw finally came home today.
After four ...

I discovered my first setback in the shop conversion today. It spurs from two things, my naivete and the government, but it boils down to one word, permits.
When I was planning this little excursion, I planned to do things in stages. One wall at a time, spend the money over time, and reap the benefits of finished walls, hang some cabinets, hang some lumber racks, free up space to keep moving forward.
But I started wondering about permits. I wondered if ‘finishing’ the ga...

The weather has been nice lately. Nice enough to work in the garage without a jacket. You’d think I’d be stepping up the conversion of my garage, but instead I’ve been letting myself get distracted, wanting to actually build things.
So last weekend I made a crosscut sled, and tried my hand at a box joint jig. The crosscut sled was a success, the shop made runners seem to be working, and the accuracy is impressive, with less than half a millimeter off square over 36R...

It’s been a while since I’ve updated on the garage conversion. It moves forward, slowly, but it is moving forward. While waiting for the money to free itself up to start on the walls, I’ve been getting a few small projects done to allow me to clear stuff away from the walls so I can get them insulated and clad.
First item I made:
I made it from Blue Stain Pine, that was really inexpensive. I messed up on the shelf alignment, so I figured I’d hang it on the wal...

It’s been a long time since I’ve updated my blog, let alone updated my progress on the conversion from garage to shop progress.
Mainly because progress has been somewhat slow as real life has been intruding on the idyll of woodworking life.
But to that end, I present this joyous photograph.
That friends, is the south wall of my shop. Completely insulated, and sheathed in 1/2”-ish OSB. French cleats run in two rows, and the lathe bench and workbench are set pe...

My last entry showed the south wall being finished, and french cleats hung up. I had to chose a direction. Either build a tool cabinet, or take advantage of some other wasted space. So I decided to fill in the gap underneath my Sjoberg’s hobby bench.
It’s been a love hate relationship with that bench. It’s light, it walks all over the place when I’m planing, and it never felt very beefy. I loved it because my wife bought it for me, knowing I didn’t have t...